


this old heart is weak for you

by orphan_account



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Childhood Friends, F/F, aka: it's about the DYNAMIC
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-02
Updated: 2019-11-02
Packaged: 2021-01-18 17:48:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21280769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Ingrid hadn’t always been a skeptic. Once upon a time she had been a child. Once upon a time there had been… someone.(Or, how Ingrid loses her first - and only - love, then finds her again.)
Relationships: Ingrid Brandl Galatea & Sylvain Jose Gautier, Ingrid Brandl Galatea/Edelgard von Hresvelg
Comments: 4
Kudos: 178





	this old heart is weak for you

**Author's Note:**

> in THIS canon ingrid isnt racist and i don't hate her. so basically she is a different character

“I’m surprised to see you here,” Ingrid said.

The library was usually empty just after noon, with most students filtering in and out of class and Tomas on his lunch break, which was precisely why she chose this time of day to visit it. Except for Linhardt, who seemed to enjoy skulking around the magic section at all hours, she’d never seen anyone else here – and she would never have expected to see Sylvain, who had, on more than one occasion, described himself as “too handsome for reading”.

Sylvain looked up at her. “Why? Didn’t think I was the studious type?”

“I didn’t think you could read,” Ingrid replied, sitting down opposite him.

“Well, that’s where you’re wrong,” Sylvain said, sounding all too proud of his literacy. “I read – frequently.”

“Okay,” Ingrid said. “Who’s the girl?”

Sylvain’s face immediately took on an exasperated pout. “How do you know there’s a girl?”

“Because I know you,” Ingrid retorted. She’d known Sylvain for twelve years – twelve years too many, really – which meant she knew he would do anything to impress the person unlucky enough to catch his eye that week. Even come to the library.

“You don’t know me that well,” Sylvain muttered, settling into his chair to stare intently at his book again. “There’s no girl.”

“Boy, then,” Ingrid said, shaking her head. “You’ve never willingly read anything that isn’t a trashy romance novel in your life, and now you’re studying –” She reached out and swatted his fingers away from the book cover to read the title. “– _A Complete History of Faerghus Nobility? _Could there be anything duller?”

Sylvain huffed, drawing the book closer to himself. “The smart ones are the worst.”

Ingrid couldn’t suppress her wry smile. “Chin up, Gautier. Just 500 more pages and I’m sure they’ll be falling head over heels for you.”

“I mean, why couldn’t he be into trashy romance novels too?” Sylvain said loudly, putting his book down again and beginning to complain in earnest now that he didn’t have to pretend he wasn’t just doing this to impress someone anymore. “Why … _this?”_

“Because nobody actually likes those,” Ingrid said flatly, gearing up for a spiel that would start with an explanation of how romance novels were only written to live out unfulfilled fantasies and would end with a declaration that love wasn’t real. “They’re stupid, and unrealistic –”

“Oh, and I suppose you’re about to tell me about how love isn’t real,” Sylvain cut in bluntly. Ingrid blinked, taken by surprise. He chuckled at her expression.

“I know you, too,” he said. “I know you think love was a concept invented by wealthy men to trick young women into marrying them.”

“It might as well be,” Ingrid shot back. “And I’m not about to sit here and listen to _you_ tell me about it, when you fall in love ten times over every week.”

“Forgive me for being a romantic!” Sylvain exclaimed, putting a hand over his heart in mock sincerity. “I simply am too full of love, with no place to put it all.”

“You’re certainly full of _something,_ and you put your love in plenty of places,_” _Ingrid snorted. “You’re just putting in all this work to manufacture something that you can trick yourself into thinking is real, only to abandon it for the next thing in a week or so.”

“Not this time,” Sylvain said, with conviction. “Surely you once felt something for someone. Just once. Someone that would make the effort worth it.”

Ingrid paused for half a second before answering. “Never.”

To Sylvain’s credit, he didn’t mention the pause that she knew he had taken notice of. His only reaction was a barely-hidden smirk that flitted across his face as he picked his book up again. “Right.”

Well. Of course. Ingrid hadn’t always been a skeptic. Once upon a time she had been a child. Once upon a time there had been… someone.

She remembered how it felt when she was a young girl. She’d been so excited when she’d heard there was a new girl who had just arrived in Fhirdiad. Dimitri, Sylvain, and Felix were all good companions, of course, but the prospect of there being a new girl to befriend excited her – especially since her previous attempts had all ended in failure.

The girl had stood before them and brashly introduced herself as Edelgard von Hresvelg, future Emperor Of The (and then her uncle had cut her off). Ingrid liked her immediately, sensing about her the kind of boldness that the other girls she knew so desperately lacked.

They had become fast friends. Though she only spoke about her past in vague terms, Ingrid felt that Edelgard, too, knew what it was like to have her life dictated by the expectations of others. Over time Ingrid began to hold a great admiration for Edelgard and her conviction, her dedication to what she felt was right. Edelgard, in turn, appreciated Ingrid’s willingness to spar with her in order to sharpen her combat skills – albeit with tree branches, rather than actual weapons.

“I wish we could use _real _weapons,” Edelgard complained one summer day, throwing down the tree branch she had been wielding as a sword. “These are too light.”

“You’re stronger than I am,” Ingrid replied, sitting down in the grass and flopping back to lie down. Her mother would surely scold her later for getting her dress dirty, but she didn’t care – not when Edelgard had decided to lie down next to her. The sky was a shade of blue unfamiliar to Ingrid. It was never that blue in Fhirdiad.

“Someday,” Edelgard mused aloud. “I would like to show you what it’s like in Enbarr.”

“The Empire capital?”

“Yes,” Edelgard said. “That’s where I’m from.”

“Oh. I didn’t know that.”

“Nobody does.” Edelgard lifted a hand up to trace the shape of a cloud in the sky. “The skies there are even bluer than this, and you can always hear the sea, wherever you are.”

“Wow,” Ingrid said quietly. “Here it’s always cold.”

“You don’t like the cold?”

Ingrid shook her head. “It tires me so, having to dress for winter. I imagine it will be even worse when I grow up and become a knight.”

“You want to be a knight?” Edelgard inquired, turning her head. Ingrid turned her head to look back.

“Yes, I do,” she said, suddenly nervous under Edelgard’s gaze. “I want to be a Pegasus knight. They don’t wear very heavy armor. I imagine it must be awful in wintertime.”

“Well,” Edelgard said. “When I inherit my family title, you can come to Enbarr and be my knight. Then you’ll never have to worry about the cold again.”

Ingrid laughed. “I can’t be a knight for the Empire.”

“You can do whatever you like,” Edelgard said fiercely, and Ingrid could feel her heart skip a beat. “Even be a knight for the Empire. A knight in shining armor, like the kind you read about in books.”

Ingrid smiled, allowing herself to indulge in the fantasy for the moment. “I would protect you well.”

Edelgard scoffed. “Who said anything about protecting? We’d be fighting together.”

“Oh,” Ingrid said. “I don’t think you understand what a knight is.”

“Perhaps not,” Edelgard said, and turned her face back to the sky. “But I want you to be mine.”

Ingrid hadn’t gotten the chance to say goodbye to Edelgard when she had suddenly left Fhirdiad, very quickly and unceremoniously. It was many years before she saw her again at the Officers Academy. Ingrid had long since given up on ever seeing her again, and to find her again here was a surprise.

The years had changed Edelgard. Her hair had been stripped of its color, and she carried herself with the kind of grace and nobility that came with a royal upbringing. But still there was that unerring conviction in her eyes that reminded Ingrid of what had drawn her in when they were children.

The admiration had returned, but Ingrid was unwilling to approach her now – afraid, really, that Edelgard wouldn’t remember the time they spent together as children. It was embarrassing, but the time had meant something to her, and she feared that Edelgard not remembering it would ruin those memories forever. So, rather than risk that, Ingrid tided herself over with furtive, stolen glances whenever their paths crossed.

What kind of a knight was she, to be so fearful of something that mattered so little?

Ingrid was afraid that someone might catch on (although there was no way anyone would), and threw herself into her studies and training in an attempt to ignore the quiet yearning that sank into her bones and made itself painfully known every time she saw Edelgard swing an axe with effortless grace from across the training grounds. She thought, often, of what it must be like to fight for her, rather than against her.

She watched as, over the months, the occurrences surrounding the monastery grew ever stranger, and Dimitri grew ever more disillusioned, more and more unlike the quiet and idealistic boy she had grown up with. It was the first time that she felt she could understand the capacity for darkness lurking just under his skin, the kind that Felix had been accusing him of ever since Duscur.

It made it easier, when the time came, for Ingrid to kneel before Edelgard, leader of the Adrestian Empire, and say: “I would like to join you.”

Edelgard regarded her, looking beautiful and fierce and terrible, one hand resting lightly on the hilt of her axe. Hubert, as always, stood at her shoulder, looking upon Ingrid with distaste and suspicion.

“You are of Faerghus,” Edelgard said. “Why walk with me?”

“My lineage and my Crest have always weighed heavy on my shoulders, placed expectations upon me that have controlled me my whole life,” Ingrid explained. “I should like to live in a world free of the trappings of nobility. The world that you promise to create.”

“And what of your king?” Edelgard asked, coldly.

“I knew him once,” Ingrid said, looking down. “I don’t anymore.”

There was silence for a while. Ingrid didn’t dare look up, didn’t dare make eye contact, lest Edelgard’s rejection be made clear through her face rather than her words. She didn’t think she could bear to be turned away by the woman she had so admired for so many years. Then, finally, Edelgard spoke.

“To turn your back on your home takes strength,” she said. “Are you ready to fight the ones you love, should it come to that?”

“For you, and for the world I wish to live in,” Ingrid replied, quietly but solemnly. “Anything is worth it.”

She could hear Edelgard rise from her throne to walk forward and stand before her. Ingrid kept her head bowed, her heart pounding in her ears. There was another nerve-wracking moment of silence before Edelgard spoke again.

“I welcome you to the Adrestian Empire, Ingrid Galatea,” she said, and there was a melody in the way she spoke Ingrid's name.

All of a sudden there was a gentle but insistent hand on her cheek, turning her face upward. The emperor’s hand was warm and lightly calloused, and Ingrid unconsciously leaned into her touch, suddenly unable to speak. Edelgard’s piercing eyes searched her face before softening as she smiled.

“My knight in shining armor,” she said with a note of fondness in her voice, and Ingrid’s breath hitched in her throat. That quiet yearning was cresting over her like a wave. “I’m glad to have you back with me.”

“My lady,” Ingrid replied, and meant every word. “I will protect you. Always.”


End file.
